Good Posture – The Secret Behind a Great Workout

One important element that many people overlook dusing a workout is maintaining good posture. They focus on the intensity, the Sets and the Reps, or on lifting more weights. But in the process, they fail to look at one of the most important areas – good posture.

We will first look at why it is important for you to maintain a good posture. Then we will explore how you can improve your posture to get the best results from your training effort.

Why is a Good Posture Important When Training?

Here are 3 important reasons why you should focus on maintaining a good posture when you do any form of exercise:

Good posture helps Prevent Injury

One of the most important reasons why you should maintain a proper posture while training is to prevent injury. This is very important – especially if you are training with weights.

When we lift heavy weights, we have a tendency to focus on the weight and the effort required in lifting rather than the posture. Wrong postures adopted during workouts can lead to misalignment of the body. Our muscles, tendons, and joints might get into wrong positions which can potentially lead to stress injuries like sprains or tears.

Maintaining a good posture ensures that your weight is balanced well and all the joints of the body are in ideal positions to handle the weight and the forces generated during training. Doing exercise – especially resistance exercise, if our joints are not in proper alignment, it can lead to increased stress and wear and tear to the joints and other surrounding tissues leading to injury.

The best way to prevent these injuries is to train your body to adopt the correct postures for each exercise or workout. If you are doing weights, you should start with lower weights so that you can focus easily on training with the right posture rather than struggling to lift the weights. It’s always better to lift lighter weights with proper form than to lift heavy weight with a sloppy form. Once your body learns the correct posture and it gets embedded in the muscle memory through repetition, then you can easily work your way up the ‘weight ladder to the heavier weights. Use the same principle for all forms of exercises. Start light and focus on your technique and posture. Once you master these, slowly increase the intensity of the workout.

It Improves The Effectiveness of Exercises Through Better Muscle Targeting

A good posture ensures correct muscle targeting. That will help you get the best out of your workout by ensuring that during the exercise, the muscles of the body are at an ideal length to generate maximum force. You will be able to do more focused, intense exercise routines if your muscles are able to generate higher amounts of force. If you are trying to increase strength or to build muscles, you will get the best benefit out of your workouts if you train with a good posture.

A good posture will also help burn more calories – both during and after workouts. This is especially beneficial if you are trying to lose weight, get leaner or even tone up your body.

Improves Your Breathing Technique During Exercise

One area that is often ignored is the way we breathe during training. Plenty of oxygen is vital to your body when performing high intensity activities – whether it is Cardio or Weight Training. A good posture helps to ensure that your breathing is proper during the workouts and that you get adequate oxygen. This is essential for your training to be effective because it helps generate more force as well as reduce the risk of heart problems, aneurisms and sudden increases in blood pressure. A good posture helps you breathe easier and will also improve your focus and reduce stress.

So What is a Good Posture and How Can You Improve Your Posture?

As per C.H.E.K Institute, one of the best institutions that provide education and training for fitness professionals, the ideal posture is “That state of muscular and skeletal balance, which protects the supporting structures of the body against injury or progressive deformity, irrespective of the attitude in which these structures are working or resting.”

It is during a state of ideal posture that the muscles will function most efficiently. In an ideal posture, a line extending down the side of the body should run through the ear lobe, transect the shoulder, hip and knee joints and fall just anterior to (in front of) the ankle bone. If a small plumb line is suspended from the apex of the cheekbone, it should bisect the clavicle (collar bone).

For those of us who have been unaware of what is the right posture to adopt during training, it is essential that we seek professional guidance on correcting our postures before we do any further damage to our body, training the wrong way.

One of the steps in the correction of these cases of faulty alignment involves shortening and strengthening of the long weak muscles and while the stretching of the short tight muscles.

It is absolutely vital to start any session with a good full body dynamic and mobility warm up circuit that fires up the muscles, gaining optimal ranges of movement in the joints, especially focusing on the very actions that you will be using during your workout. This can help prevent stress injuries and help you train better.

The best way to improve your posture and overall training effectiveness to seek guidance from a certified CHEK practitioner near you.

Remember, ignoring the importance of a good posture means you could be risking serious injury.

It is always better to learn how to train the right way with the help of a trained CHEK professional as this will help produce huge long term benefits for your body.